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Posts about Minnesota Parks

June 10, 1871: How mosquitoes bite

Posted by: Ben Welter Updated: August 22, 2011 - 9:43 PM

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If I understand this Minneapolis Tribune piece correctly, if you were as big as a kitten, a mosquito bite would kill you. Which can't have been good news for underweight infants of the 1870s. But it does hint at why the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District began dousing the Twin Cities with fuel oil and DDT nearly a century later.

HOW MOSQUITOES BITE.

 
The mosquito has a proboscis like an elephant, only not so large. It will, however, look nearly as large under a good microscope. He cannot do so many handy things with it as the elephant can, with his, but he can cause a good deal of annoyance with it in a small way.
 
It is hardly the thing to say that the mosquito bites us, for he has not teeth. The microscope reveals the fact that he carries a pair of scissors inside of his proboscis; the neatest and sharpest little cutting tools you ever saw. He gets his living by these. They are two delicate little blades, and are placed alongside each other. When he is ready to make a meal off of us, he first buzzes around with those beautiful wings and sings a pleasant little song. If we let him quietly settle down, he picks out a place on our skin which is just to his liking. He is very delicate about it. When he gets ready, he puts his proboscis down, and pushes the little scissors out, and makes a neat cut, so that he can suck the blood out.
 
Then he drinks as much blood as he wants, and he is done with his dinner, but he does not leave yet. He is going to pay his bill. He has taken our blood, and he will leave us something in exchange for it. With all his faults, he is an honest little fellow – after his fashion. He has the pay in his pocket, ready to squeeze out before he goes. It is poison, but that makes no difference to him. It is the best he has to give us. His poison pocket is at the head of his proboscis, and at the lower end of his proboscis he has another little pocket, into which he puts poison enough for one dose.
 
This poison is very powerful. A very little makes the place where the mosquito puts it very sore. After he has sucked our blood he puts the drop of poison into the place he took the blood from. It is not the bite or cut that the mosquito makes that hurts us, but the dropping of this powerful poison into our flesh. If this mosquito were large enough to give a powerful dose of this poison, it would be bad for us. If we were as big as a kitten, and his poison as strong in proportion, a “bite” from him would kill us.
 

The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District has been taking it to our unofficial state bird since 1958. It’s not clear what Kenneth Shoberg, above, was spraying on a swampy patch of land near Hwy. 7 and W. Lake Street in St. Louis Park in April 1965. But until 1968, the agency applied hundreds of thousands of pounds of DDT each year to breeding sites around the metro area. The United States banned the pesticide four years later. The agency now relies on such insecticides as permethrin and on bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, a naturally occurring bacterium that destroys the mosquitoes’ digestive tracts. Take that, you little buggers. (Minneapolis Tribune photo by Russell Bull)

 

After serving in the military during World War II, "two fighting Irishmen" from St. Paul, Ed and Bert Cochran, engaged in a war on mosquitoes in the Twin Cities. In 1949, homeowners paid $40 for a DDT treatment every six or seven days from May 1 to Oct. 1. Here Ed Cochran gave the Cedar Shores community a thorough taste of the insecticide. (Minneapolis Star photo)

May 3, 1959: Let’s go car camping!

Posted by: Ben Welter Updated: August 10, 2011 - 12:41 AM

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A Tribune photographer followed the Donald F. Anderson family of Minneapolis into the wilds of northern Minnesota and captured the images below for Picture magazine. Did your parents take you camping? Did you rough it in the Boundary Waters or Glacier National Park? Or did you head for a nearby state park in a Country Squire station wagon packed with a canvas tent, camp stove, sleeping bags, air mattresses, fishing gear, board games and coolers full of food and drink?

Station Wagon Camping

 
THE STATION WAGON has revolutionized car camping. “Station wagon camping” is a new term in our language. You begin to understand it when you see a family (in this case, the Donald F. Anderson family, 4641 S. Washburn Av.) vacationing beside some Minnesota lake with all the comforts of home in camping gear. These photos were taken near Ely, at Birch lake campground, one of several camping areas in the Superior national forest.
 
The current surge of interest in car camping is a major social phenomenon. More persons camped out last year than ever before and the trend is continuing. The manufacturers of camping equipment are fully aware of this new interest in outdoor living.
 
IF YOU’RE new to camping, you’re wondering what to buy to camp in comfort. You need: tent, tarpaulin, cooler, stove, camp cooking kit, lamp, air mattresses, sleeping bags and blankets. The tent is your major item. Consider seriously the tent with sewn-in groundcloth, mosquito-netting door, and a fly that shelters the doorway.
 

ORIGINAL CAPTION: Family camping is no longer primitive business. The Anderson family had home conveniences in a forest setting. (Tribune photos by Earl Seubert, with original captions)

 

On a trip, the floor space behind the front seat becomes a safe play area for Kristin, 11, and Rolf, 13.

 

You don't have to stay put at the camp site. You can use the campground as base of operations, go sight-seeing in the area.
 

Air mattresses, basic for sleeping comfort, can also be used for sun-bathing and water fun.
 

Station wagons are spare bedrooms for the younger members of the party. Besides flashlights your camp will need some kind of lantern.

August 2011 update: Kristin Anderson Moore, now a program director and senior scholar at a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., sent me this:

I remember this trip very clearly, as it was our family’s first camping trip. Our neighbor worked for the Sunday magazine, and they needed a typical family to try out and demonstrate the equipment. We were happy to do it, and it was fun! Both Rolf and I and our children have done a lot of camping in the ensuing 52 years. In fact, Rolf and I and our spouses are going canoeing in the Boundary Waters next week ….without the station wagon!

Dec. 21, 1890: A new name for Lake Calhoun

Posted by: Ben Welter Updated: July 23, 2011 - 2:11 PM

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In November 1890, a Minneapolis Park Board committee discussed the possibility of renaming “various parks, parkways and portions thereof.” Among the suggestions: Restore Lake Calhoun’s original name, Lake Mendoza.” A month later, the board approved that change, along with several others. Some of the names have stood the test of time. Others, including Lake Mendoza, faded from use within a year or two. An editorial in the Tribune predicted such an outcome – and also mentioned a bit of history that will be of interest to those now pushing for Calhoun to be renamed Lake Humphrey.

PARKS RE-CHRISTENED.

Yesterday’s meeting of the park board was a decidedly interesting one, as it was in the nature of a christening — and there is much in the bestowal of a name, as everybody will admit. The board honored its distinguished president, and in so doing honored itself, by changing the name of Central Park to Loring Park. Mr. Loring protested, suggesting that it be called Hennepin Park instead, or, if it was to bear his name, that the honor be deferred until after his death; but his objections were of no avail, and Loring Park it is from now on. A handsomer or more appropriate compliment could not have been bestowed upon the man who has done so much to build up the magnificent park system that makes Minneapolis the envy of her sister cities of the West. At the same time the name is one of pleasing sound and a vast improvement over “Central,” which has become so common as to mean anything from a beer garden to a baseball field.
 
The board also wisely decided that Elliott, Steele and Murphy parks should retain their present names in honor of the liberal citizens who donated them to Minneapolis. The roadways at Harriet are to be named after the donors of the land. Hawthorne Park has been changed to Hawthorne Square. Many would have been better pleased had it been made a monument to the late Eugene M. Wilson and re-christened with his name. Kenwood and Superior boulevards will hereafter be known as Kenwood parkway — a change that will do away with much confusion. Saratoga Park becomes Glenwood Park. This is another change for the better. There is but one Saratoga entitled to the name; all others are imitations or impostures more or less rank. The tract offered by Col. W. S. King is to be named Lyndale Park when it shall be taken into the park system.
 
But the most striking change of all — one almost revolutionary in its character — is that by which Lake Calhoun becomes Lake Mendoza. Lake Calhoun was named, not after the great nullifier, but in honor of a Lieutenant Calhoun of early days. Mendoza is a pretty name and is supposed to be the one used by Hiawatha in referring to the beautiful sheet of water now called Lake Calhoun, but for all that, it will not stick. After a whole generation has known a lake, a mountain or a river by some particular name that name will cling to it forever more. It may be Mendoza on the maps, on the records of the park board and on the minutes of the council, but on the hearts of Minneapolitans, old and young, it is indelibly stamped as Calhoun. The changes are nearly all for the better and yesterday’s work of the park commissioners will meet with general approval.
 

These chaps posing on the banks of Lake Calhoun in about 1890 belonged to the Lurline Boat Club. The rowing attire of the day didn't leave much to the imagination. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

June 24, 1960: Soap box derby!

Posted by: Ben Welter Updated: June 27, 2011 - 12:30 AM

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As you can see in the Minneapolis Star photo below, students in Mr. Clinger’s woodworking class at Jordan Junior High School in 1960 were way past birdhouses and toolboxes. With the Minneapolis derby just weeks away, these boys were putting the finishing touches on soap box cars. Safety goggles were apparently optional. Scroll down for more photos of gravity- and kid-powered cars of yesteryear.

 

Here's the original Minneapolis Star caption published on June 24, 1960:

INDUSTRY AT ITS BEST can be found these days in the woodworking shop at Jordan junior high school where seven youths are at work on their soap box racers. The boys are Jack Fyten, 13, 3218 N. Lyndale Av.; Tim Fair, 13, 3035 N. 6th St.; Larry Thompson, 13, 5530 N. Girard; Lee Fjeld, 12, 2710 N. Aldrich Av.; Randy Johnson, 13, 3446 N. Washburn Av.; Bob Quigley, 14, 3230 N. Bryant Av., and Dennis DeMan, 12, 2309 Walton Pl. Instructor is James Clinger of the junior high. The Minneapolis derby will be July 9 at 12:30 p.m. at St. Anthony Blvd. and NE. Johnson St. Entries, which close Saturday, can be made with any Chevrolet dealer.
 

These industrious girls were building a pushmobile to race in a  Minneapolis Tribune-Park Board derby in July 1940. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
 

Competitors in a variety of contraptions lined up for an Aquatennial pushmobile race in 1940. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
 

Here's the original Minneapolis Tribune caption published on June 18, 1960:

The Abbott brothers of 3344 Harriet Av. are all ready to race in the 1960 Minneapolis Soap Box derby July 9. Walter 15 (left); Michael, 13; and Joel, 12, entered last year's derby, too, with Michael winning his first race. (Photo by Don Black)

1920s: Girls' rifle team was bobbed and dangerous

Posted by: Ben Welter Updated: May 17, 2011 - 4:56 PM

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The young ladies below were members of the Minneapolis Park Board girls’ rifle team. Little is known about the squad beyond what can be deduced from this Minneapolis Journal photo from about 1920. The girls met for training and perhaps competitions at the Armory southwest of the Basilica of St. Mary, which is visible in the distance. Crisp uniforms, matching socks and nicely bobbed hair were required. Gun safety training? This trio must have skipped that day, judging from the careless way they pointed their rifles.
 

The Minneapolis Armory, built in a marshy area near Kenwood Parkway in 1907, was already showing cracks when this photo was taken. By 1929 the massive structure had settled so much in the soft ground that it had to be condemned. It was torn down in 1933. (Minneapolis Journal photo courtesy mnhs.org)
 

The Armory in 1907, the year it opened. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)
 

The 1909 Minneapolis auto show, the city's second, drew about 45,000 car enthusiasts to the Armory. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

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